Road to The Unknown/Issue 20
Several hours passed as the group made their stay in the shack, Royce continued to keep watch fighting off constant sleep as the rest of the group were either resting or eating. The blizzard had progressively died down to near enough a light snowfall. In the near distance it looked like silhouettes were wandering around outside of the shack, however to Royce this to him was a figment of his imagination from the impending sleep. Shaking his head to fight off the oncoming sleep, Royce sat down on a nearby chair and continued keeping watch. Time seemed to pass forever as the night progressed, the wind kept deceptively playing tricks on the ongoing exhaustion, Royce anxiously rubbed his arm and looked behind to see who was awake. Gwyn cocked his head at him with a disgruntled expression and approached Royce. "Hey." Gwyn said. "Think you can take over for a while? I'm starting to lose my mind." "Sure, but we need to talk first." "About?" Royce asked in a worried tone. "What actually happened with Jason?" "What?" "Answer the question." "I don't...follow." "Don't bullshit me Jettingham, what happened." Royce looked at Gwyn with an anxious look and again rubbed his arm, carefully pondering what to say, knowing he's not getting out of this. "He..." "Yes?" "He sacrificed himself to let us get away." "From who?" "Fuck if I know, some bandits I guess." "I don't believe you." "Excuse me?" "You heard me." Taken aback by Gwyn's sudden statement, Royce stood up from his chair with his fists clenched. "I don't think you understand what you're saying Gwyn." "And I don't think you understand lying isn't going to make this go away." "What's brought this on?" "I've spoken to Sean and he-" "Sean?" "Yeah, he thinks you two killed him." "What the fu- you're taking his word over ours?" "Yeah well, Sean's not exactly been wrong on shit like this with his gut instinct." "Yeah in situations where he was actually there." "Look, I'm inclined to believe him because he's not exactly been wrong about shit like this, and even beforehand you'd been acting weird." "What? How th- look, Jason died letting us escape." Gwyn looked at Royce with almost utmost rage at the response, while the argument wasn't loud it still attracted the attention of Tanith who walked over cautiously. "What's going on?" Tanith asked. "Gwyn here seems to think Jason died differently." "How'd you mean?" Looking at disgust at the two, Gwyn placed his hand on Tanith's shoulder and almost pleadingly looked at her with a desperate expression. "What...happened?" "What?" "To Jason." "We got attacked and he kept them busy so we could slip out." "Is that true?" Tanith remained silent and looked at Royce who gave her a look of concern. "Yes." A slight grunt emerged from Gwyn, who motioned for the two get away from the lookout spot, Gwyn pulled up the chair and sat down with his gun ready. Looking down at his gun he took off the safety, looked at Royce and Tanith as they went to find somewhere to sleep and shook his head suddenly, before looking outside. "What brought that on?" Tanith asked in a hoarse voice to avoid attention from the rest of the sleeping group. "Sean..." "He's feeding shit? Is he trying to get us killed." "Knowing him probably." With a sigh, Tanith sat down and cocked her head for Royce to sit next to her, he looked at her in surprise but she kept her gaze on him almost burning into him to sit next to her, Royce looked around to see no one else was awake and cautiously sat down. Tanith chuckled lightly. "You do realise I won't bite you, right?" she joked. "Yeah, tell that to my ribs after you attacked me." "Yeah, after you wouldn't quit being an asshole." "Look, it's what I do, besides it's cute when you're angry." Royce joked. "...you could've told me to stop." "Nah, that'd be rude plus I wanted to see if you could give a solid punch, and I think my ribs would agree you do." "Thanks...I think?" An awkward silence filled the atmosphere, Royce looked down at his feet as Tanith looked around almost trying to fill conversation, she looked at Royce's arm and then nervously rubbed hers, the gunshot had long healed and it served as a painful reminder that Royce had saved her from potentially being killed or taken from the group by Derek. "Did I ever thank you?" she suddenly blurted out. "What?" "Y'know for...well, shooting that guy." "You don't need to." "No, I do. I mean I guess you could say we're even after I bailed our asses outta there, but..." "But...?" "I...appreciate what you did, even if you did shoot me." "Well, if it makes you feel any better I got my arm ripped open by a damn wolf." "Yeah...and, thanks for letting me wear your jacket. Must admit, it was kinda weird seeing you without it." "What was so weird?" "I don't think I've ever seen you without it." "...point taken." Royce looked away in embarassment at the statement as Tanith moved herself closer to Royce, he looked at her and was trying to inch himself away before she pulled him back. She shook her head and rested her head on his shoulder, she muttered something to herself but he didn't catch what she said. "What...are you doing?" Royce asked sheepishly. "Well, we're both tired and you have a habit of being able to sleep anywhere and really I need a pillow, and from what I remember you're pretty comfortable to sleep on." "O...kay, fair enough. Guess I should catch some shut eye." Royce looked at Tanith and noticed she'd already drifted off to sleep, a few minutes passed and exhaustion took over Royce as he himself soon drifted. Straid looked at the two a moment before again passing off to sleep. Roughly two hours had passed and the snow had stopped completely, Gwyn was still looking outside. Mere minutes later there was a sudden banging on the basement door, the noise startling the group awake. There was a silence amongst the group as everyone tried to work out where the noise came from until Michael aimed his head at the basement door. The banging continued as Gwyn and Michael looked at each other in confusion, Rayne looked on nervously as Sean, Royce and Tanith prepared themselves for whatever was behind the door. Michael looked down and realised he still had the key, with a brief pause he looked at Gwyn who nodded to open the door. "Do we really wanna open this?" Michael asked. "No!" Rayne shouted in terror, Sean motioned her to stand behind him. Any other day the group would've been surprised but Sean didn't care, this was a situation where ultimately he couldn't afford to let his own vanity take control. Royce cocked his handgun as did Tanith with her rifle and they both pointed their firearms at the door. Michael looked at the two for confirmation that they're ready and Gwyn kept close behind Michael to provide support, Michael inched his hand with the key being held to the basement doors lock and unlocked it. The banging suddenly stopped as Gwyn slowly backed away. The door suddenly burst open, the impact knocking Michael down as an incredibly disfigured person ran out, the "corpse" from the basement. Looking around in a frenzy it saw the group and slowly inched into the corner sizing up who to try and target. Time seemed to stop for the bewildered group, Michael picked himself up as the "corpse" still observed the group. In almost a split second of incredible speed the corpse tackled Gwyn and tried to claw at him, the rest of the group stood in shock as they tried to work out what to do. Sean aimed his gun at the creature before lowering his aim and kicking at the creature and pinning it down with his foot, he aimed and pulled the trigger. Nothing, his gun had jammed. "Shit..." Sean whispered as the creature clawed at his leg. "SOMEONE FUCKING GET OVER HERE AND FINISH THIS THING" he screamed Suddenly a boot came crashing down, and crushed the creatures head. Sean looked up to see Straid, nodding their hooded head to acknowledge it's dead. Sean raised his foot to shake off the blood and lifted Gwyn up. "Don't say I don't look after you guys" he laughed. Royce and Tanith looked at the corpse completely bewildered as Michael has his gun trained at it with Gwyn and Rayne looking on. "That's the...corpse I saw in the basement." Michael gasped. "Well it sure weren't dead was it?" Sean replied. "That's...not possible, there was no pulse. Nothing" "Well something's up." "So...we're fighting zombies now?" Royce joked. "No...I don't think so, I don't think a zombie is gonna be THAT intelligent to try and single out a target." Michael replied. "He's got a point." Rayne chimed in, as she shook nervously. "Zombies don't do that." A general consensus had hit the group, that while not a zombie it was some sort of creature that awoke while the group made their stay in the shack. "Throw the body down back into the basement and we're keeping that door locked, anymore banging we leave. Got it?" Michael asked. There were no arguments, Royce and Gwyn picked up the corpse and threw it down as the smell in the basement had grew even more decayed. Michael looked the door and threw the key away. "I'll keep watch this time." Rayne said. "No you're not." Gwyn demanded as he pushed her back. "Let her do it." Michael jumped in. A brief look of irritation came across Gwyn's face but Michael remained firm in his judgement. "Let the girl do it." "I'm not completely useless, I don't like using guns but I don't want to seem like I'm doing nothing, if something happens I'll shout for you guys." Gwyn looked at Rayne and then Michael before conceding. Rayne sat down with her hands in her lap as the rest of the group prepared to try and sleep again, Straid near the fireplace, Sean in one corner, Gwyn completely separated from the group, Michael near Rayne and Royce and Tanith in the same position they were before they were awoke. Cast Main Cast *Royce Jettingham *Tanith Rowe *Sean *Gwyn *Rayne *Straid** *Selena* *Does not appear. **No lines Supporting Cast *Michael Trivia Serious Trivia *While not a zombie, I guess it was I'm gonna try and go into more detail on what it was hopefully in future issues *Slowly getting through to reworking the names **Gwyn's his actual name, originally I was gonna have Gwyn as a female called Gwen but I didn't wanna do it so I went with Gwyn after doing some digging to find it's an actual name what's a unisex name, not just a Dark Souls reference ***Tanith isn't her real name, I'll go into more detail in another issue ****Silas is a nickname from before it happened, expect explanation soon *****I'm working on unhooding Straid and again, not real name think of it like some of these nerds wanted to go anew with their names or some shit fuck if I know and there's a reason why they wear the hood it'll more than likely come off as cliche as shit but hey hoe we all have cliches *Issue 20 baybay! *I'm gonna try and actually start writing more now that life isn't fucking me in the ass much love *While not a zombie, I guess it was I'm gonna try and go into more detail on what it was hopefully in future issues *I'd quite like to say the dialogue isn't as fucking autistic as it was when I first started and now my head's cleared up from shit it's coming off as more natural Not So Serious *I'm still pretty much a functioning alcoholic **Pls send help *inb4 no one cares I did this and none of y'all comment plsdosoihaveareasontoliveandcarryonwritingthankyouandgodblessyoucrazyfucks Category:Road to The Unknown Category:Road to The Unknown Issues